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Title: Is Immigration Enforcement Shaping Immigrant Marriage Patterns?

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2019

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Abstract: This paper identifies intermarriage (between non-citizens and citizens) as an important response mechanism to intensified immigration enforcement, particularly among Mexican non-citizens. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the implementation of interior immigration enforcement from 2005 to 2017, we find that a one standard deviation increase in enforcement raises Mexican non-citizens’ likelihood of marrying a U.S. citizen by 3 to 6 percent. Our results show that this effect is driven by a change in spousal preference. Both police-based and employment-based enforcement contribute to this impact. The analysis adds to a growing literature examining how immigrants respond to tightened enforcement and, importantly, sheds light on the recent growth of intermarriage among Mexican immigrants.

Url: http://ftp.iza.org/dp12876.pdf

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Authors: Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina; Arenas-Arroyo, Esther; Wang, Chunbei

Series Title: IZA DP Series

Publication Number: 12876

Institution: IZA

Pages: 60

Publisher Location: Bonn, Germany

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Migration and Immigration, Other

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